Refrains of Youth
by Auspicious Rose
Summary: A vignette from a pensive angle on Holmes' sensitivity to music.


[A/N: Here is my second story on Fanfiction.net. Many thanks to the readers who reviewed "A Sombre Rationale;" your comments are quite uplifting. :) I'd also like to thank Imp for giving me the inspiration to post again. I'd had this and another story written for a long time, but was daunted from posting by the floods of new stories rushing through here right now.  
  
I came up with this story while I was pondering over Holmes' connection to music, trying to think of why he is so touched by it. In the end, it became an exploration of his past. I don't usually like to make assumptions about what his young life was like; nevertheless, the story came to me, and I decided to write it down. Maybe it would have happened, maybe it wouldn't have... I'm not trying to assert this as a definite solution to the enigma of who Holmes is, and why. It's simply an idea... --_AR_ ]  
  
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Refrains of Youth

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The room is large, but it is full, as it always is on such nights. Forms, covered in luxurious colours, emit pitchless sounds that swell together into a uniform hum. The room's light falls away from the crowd, and the hum disappears as its source becomes dim. A low, level place faces the crescent-like half-space, and with a glow now revealing the view inside, it has become the focussing point of the room. 

A pair of small eyes watches from above... small by adult scales, but widened by an attention that rarely creates such a big effect on older faces. The eyes are young, but a sombre curtain hovers behind them, too old for the bright face to which they belong. The curtain is parted now, however, and a wonder reaches out from the boy. He is watching a figure far below him, a figure moving in a flowing skirt, illuminated by flickering candles. She is familiar, yet distant and strange to his eyes. He watches her steps, soundless, gliding her across the stage. Notes soar through the air, sweet and pure, and they reach the boy's ears, imparting tingles of awe. The woman is singing, singing in a light soprano voice, the meaning of her words veiled from the boy by foreign expression. They are beautiful to him, enigmatic, mysterious. 

She is mysterious, enigmatic... beautiful. He knows her face and her voice, that heavenly voice, but he doesn't know her. He knows that she is called his mother; that he, in a time he can't recall, came from her being and became who he was on earth. She used to hold him, he has been told. He cannot remember that. She never holds him now, seldom even touches or speaks to him. The only time he can experience her is here, in the theatre, sitting far removed in a high balcony. His nanny often chides him to sit up straight, pushing him back into his seat when he leans forward. She never has to command silence, however. Although that is a rigid requirement wherever he is taken, she need not enforce it here. It would be superfluous. 

He listens as the notes pour out from that graceful figure, reverberating up to the ceiling in sometimes full, sometimes soft tones... tones that shift up and down, strong from the start, yet wavering as they fade to be replaced by more, ever more. The tune is lone and longing, reflecting itself on his face. She reaches the top of the song, flowing her voice from a high place. Someone in the theatre coughs in rough discord, but he doesn't notice. They have been doing that throughout her presence, but right now, he is as disconnected from them as they are from him. He only hears his mother. Her song echos in his head, creating sad half-thoughts that he feels but cannot hear. He feels he is closer to her than he is at any other time, but the closeness is not complete... it leaves his soul isolated from hers. He wants to reach out to her, but he is afraid. 

He used to reach out in that old, hazy time that the adults sometimes mention, but memories remain deep below recognition, arresting him from inside before he can even get close enough to brush her hand with his little fingers. His feelings are nothing sacred outside of his own breast; outside they are at best ignored, and they are usually slighted. Sometimes their soft, tender forms are twisted sharply and shoved back into his face. He used to bleed his reaction in clear, stinging drops that spilled over through his eyes. He rarely cries any more; the scars are thick. He is still hurt, but though the injuries aren't any less painful, they don't bleed as much as they used to. He knows that he cannot bear emotion to the outside world without being injured. His outside world is his family. 

The song ends, and applause clatters through the air, spreading by hands trained to express their appreciation in claps. The boy isn't compelled to clap at all. He is filled with something that doesn't bow itself to acknowledge accomplishment; it can hardly be called appreciation. He is saddened by an enthrallment with nothing more to fill it; his heart is a longing space dearly holding that deceased sound, wishing for more, wishing for a warmth that will not echo and fade back into distance. 

"Do sit straight, Sherlock!" His nanny spanks him on the shoulder, and his eyes water slightly as he watches his mother disappear behind falling curtains. 


End file.
